


I Have Dreamed of Joy Departed

by thornfield_girl



Category: Justified
Genre: Dreams, M/M, Repressed Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-10 14:50:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thornfield_girl/pseuds/thornfield_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raylan has forgotten something important, but his dreams won't leave him alone. Especially when he learns he's headed back to Harlan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Have Dreamed of Joy Departed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [norgbelulah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/gifts).



Raylan wakes up in his bedroom in Miami. He's had the House Dream again. The one where he's wandering through what is supposedly his childhood home, but only bears a passing resemblance. There are extra rooms, some furnished, some empty and blackened around the edges, like there'd been a fire. Sometimes the floor is soaked and mushy, mold growing and spreading, threatening to attach itself to his boots.

And then there's the attic door. That's always the part that's terrifying, that fills him with nameless dread. The rest of the house, while depressing, doesn't scare him. Or not much. He doesn't ever open that door. 

He's not alone in his bed. He can see long blonde hair and a shoulder with a small tattoo of a line of musical notes. Shit. 

He can remember thinking, at the bar the night before, that it was too bad she was too young for him. That if he were still 29, instead of the slightly disturbing age of 39, he'd take her home. In fact, now that he was thinking of it, he might have actually said that to her.

He holds himself back from groaning because he doesn't want to wake her up and have to talk to her. He slides carefully out of bed, and she doesn't stir. He thinks maybe she's only pretending to sleep. 

He goes to shower, not bothering to search his mind for details of the previous evening, and when he comes back to the bedroom, she's gone. He feels relieved and guilty... but mostly relieved.

 

The following week, he shoots Tommy Bucks. He wants to shoot him, and is glad the man gives him as much of an excuse as he feels he needs. It's better this way, he thinks. Tidier. His boss disagrees. The Marshal service disagrees. 

The day he is told he's being sent to Kentucky, he goes out and gets blackout drunk. He does not dream, or if he does, he can't remember.

The night before he is to leave for Kentucky, he has the dream again. The House Dream. It's the same as always, until he reaches the door at the end of the hallway. The attic. Only this time, instead of walking in the other direction, he finds himself on the other side of the door, standing on the steps. He had not made the choice to enter, but the choice had been taken from him. 

He climbs the stairs, walking toward the fear and not away. There is no point, he feels. Escape is no longer possible.

The room at the top is tiny, not like the attic at Arlo's home at all, which runs the length of the house. This is a small, grey room, made of dry, ancient wood and no windows. It looks much older than the rest of the house, inexplicably making him think of Dickens. Raylan is not normally a man who thinks in literary references.

He hears movement in the corner, but when he looks, he has the feeling that whatever was there has just eluded him. He could still _feel_ it in the room, even though that made no sense. Where would it have gone?

He didn't think it was a dangerous thing, but the idea of finding it made him feel afraid. He knew he wasn't supposed to. Whatever it was, it was not for him. 

He finds himself back outside of the house, suddenly, and picks up a set of keys from the ground next to him. Then he wakes.

Raylan is not much prone to self-analysis, but even he can read some of the symbolism in a dream like that. Whatever had been in that attic, well, it was something he wants no part of.

Raylan is in Lexington, Kentucky. Art is telling him about a bombing, and he hears the phrase, "Fire in the hole."

"Yeah, I know him. Boyd and I dug coal together when we were 19. We weren't buddies."

They were, though. Raylan doesn't think it matters, but he knows Art would think differently. 

Raylan goes to see him, and the man looks like he could not be happier to see anyone. He looks goddamn delighted. Raylan does not share this emotion. How could he? Not with the reason he's there to see him, the ugly brand on his arm, the brazen way he denies nothing, and admits nothing. This man is not his buddy. Not his friend.

That very night, he dreams the dream again. But this time, it's different. This time, he feels the presence from the attic even before he approaches the front door. It's all around him now, and he stands very still. He can feel it inside of him, which he doesn't understand at all, and yet it is. He knows he should hate it, but he doesn't, not quite. 

He wakes up in the dark, with a hard-on and a sense of impending doom. He jerks off anyway, but can't shake the other feeling. It stays with him as he lies in bed, awake, for the next two hours, and doesn't leave him all day.

The night he shoots Boyd Crowder, the dream comes back with a vengeance. 

He barely sees the house before he is in that attic again. He stalks the room, searching for the thing, the presence, but the room is empty. He's desperate now, he needs to know. He tries to call out, but he can’t make a sound. He sees a small box that he hadn’t seen before, and he goes to it. He’s sure it will be locked, but it isn’t. It opens easily, and inside is a photograph. An old Polaroid, like the ones Helen would pull from the end of her clunky camera, and wave in the air like a magician, until a picture formed. The photo in the box is undeveloped, like it had just been taken, and Raylan picks it up. Fear twists up his gut, but he waves it in the air anyway, letting it dry. 

He feels no surprise whatsoever when he sees what it was, though he can’t imagine who had taken it. It’s him and Boyd, lying in the bed of his truck. The boys in the photo are kissing each other, and Raylan has his hand up Boyd’s shirt, which strikes him as sort of funny. As if he’s hoping to cop a feel, of what, he doesn’t know. Boyd’s hand is on Raylan’s face. They look like lovers, in the truest sense of the word. 

Then, the photo is gone. The attic is gone. There’s only Boyd and Raylan, and Raylan is himself but also watching. He feels like himself, not young, but Boyd doesn’t seem to notice. He just kisses him, and kisses him, and Raylan pushes himself closer, rubs up against the boy, his movements frantic and ungraceful, desperate and needful. He reaches out and pulls him in tight, holds him there, and - 

He wakes up, heart pounding, crotch sticky from his first wet dream in what has to be ten years, at least. Jesus _Christ_ , what had that been about? He shoots a man and ends up dreaming about rubbing off on him? What kind of fucked up synapse came up with that one? He thinks he might understand why his dream self had been in love with Boyd, though. That had to be guilt. He does feel guilty. They aren’t buddies. But they were, once.

 

Raylan goes to see Boyd at the hospital. He hasn’t been able to forget the dream, but it has faded enough that it doesn’t bother him. It seems that Boyd has found religion, and Raylan doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He doesn’t know whether this is better, or worse, than what he was before. He definitely doesn’t know if this is real. 

Boyd is looking at him like he always does, as if he knows something about him. As if they have a _secret_. Raylan hates that look. There is nothing the two of them share that isn’t shared by many other Harlan men, for generations upon generations. He thinks of the dream for a second, but puts that away quickly. That was his own dream, he doesn’t share it with anyone.

What feels like a century later, but is in fact only a matter of months, they are driving toward danger together. Boyd now subdued, chastened and humbled, no longer at all sure of anything. Raylan looks over at him, sees him once more as he had been, when they’d been buddies. He knows they’re not that, not anymore, but he feels it for a few brief moments anyway. 

“Do you hate it so much, Raylan? Does it vex you, still?”

“Does what vex me, Boyd? What are you talking about?”

“The Bible says it’s wrong, I know this. Many people say it’s wrong. You would think it would have felt sinful, or dark, like shooting up heroin or something. But it never felt like that, did it?”

Raylan suddenly feels like he can’t breathe. He doesn’t take his eyes from the road. Boyd can’t be saying these things. He can’t be talking about this. This can’t be real. Maybe he’s dreaming again. He says nothing.

“I suppose it has vexed me too, knowing myself to be an unrepentant sinner. Because I know it to be a sin, but Raylan... I don’t... I can’t...”

“Boyd. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Whatever it is you’re saying we did, I don’t remember it. And I don’t think I want to, frankly.” Raylan very much wants him to stop talking, right now. But the choice has been taken from him.

“We loved each other, Raylan. That’s what we did, and the other things, we did those because of that. That’s why I can’t... I don’t believe it was truly a sin. I may go to hell for saying such a thing, but in my heart, I know it was nothing bad.”

“ _What_?” Raylan thinks of the feeling, of being there in the truck, but there is no way that could have been a true thing. That was just dream bullshit. Raylan has never loved a man, nor has he done any of those “other things.” He’s never wanted that.

Boyd is looking at him and frowning. “Are you seriously telling me that you don’t remember it?” He no longer sounds heartbroken. He sounds pissed. “You’re full of shit, Raylan. You don’t forget something like that.”

Raylan drives on, and tries to remember. He never thinks about those days, if he can help it. The mine, Arlo, he can hardly stand to let any of that in. 

“Boyd, is this real? Is this something true you’re telling me? You’re not trying to mess with me?”

Boyd speaks in a hushed tone now. “Jesus Christ, Raylan. What have you done to yourself?”

Raylan doesn’t know. He has no idea how someone would even begin to block out something as momentous, as life-changing, as falling in love at age 19 with your friend. Your best friend. Your _male_ friend. Your only friend, if you’re being honest. 

“Boyd... will you tell me?”

“I thought you didn’t want to know,” he says, a bit sharply.

“I don’t... but I think I need to. I been dreaming about it for years, I think. My mind won’t let it be.”

“You’ve been..." Boyd was staring at him now. "Okay. What do you want to know?"

"When did it start?"

"In the mine, or, during that time, I mean to say."

"I figured that much, Boyd, I meant... "

"You mean when we first..."

"Yeah."

Boyd sort of laughs, says, "I cannot believe you don't remember this."

"I'm sorry. I can't either."

"No, I mean... it was such a crazy thing. You kissed me when your daddy was in the next room."

" _I_ kissed... I did what, now? Are you shitting me?" Raylan feels the memory creeping in, feels like he must have remembered this before and pushed it away. Maybe it was in a dream.

"Not in the least. I came by to pick you up for third shift. Arlo let me in and shouted for you, then stomped off into the kitchen. You came downstairs with a black eye, and I don't know what expression was on my face when I saw it, but you just..."

"Shit. Shit, Boyd. I remember. I do. I remember that night, and how you looked at me, and how I felt in that moment. I couldn't have stopped myself if I'd wanted to. Fucking hell. That really happened."

"How did I look at you, Raylan?" Boyd sounds like he’s asking something he has long wanted the answer to. 

"Like... like you wanted to take care of me. I knew you couldn't, and I'm sure you knew that too. But I loved that you wanted to."

"You remember what happened after that?"

"Uh... well, we went to work. I can't recall speaking the whole way there. I'm pretty sure I was scared shitless."

"I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to speak about it until I was sure. I knew I couldn’t judge you for only doing the very thing I'd wanted to do myself, but I wondered if I might be able to resist the lure of... well..."

"I believe 'sodomy' is the term you're looking for." 

"You can mock all you like, Raylan, but I sincerely believed that such an act was an abomination in the eyes of God." 

"Sure, just like eating a cheeseburger."

Boyd says, like he can’t stop himself, "Are you telling me you're still engaged in homosexu-" 

"Boyd, shut up, will you? No, I haven't engaged in any 'homosexual acts,' except with you, I guess. I ain't attracted to men, okay? But that don't mean I give a shit what other people do. Or that I think it's wrong."

"I don't know what to think about it. It never felt wrong. I only felt love, and God makes love, so how could it be wrong?" He sounds bewildered, lost, again. 

"You're starting to sound like an Episcopalian, Boyd. You gonna preach that from your pulpit? All love is equal in God's eyes?"

"My preaching days are over. I tried, Raylan. I tried so hard to make a difference in the lives of men. I tried so hard to _be_ different. But I ain't. I'm the same man I was before."

"You gotta live with the man you are, not who you wish you were. Your decisions are still your own responsibility. You still have free will."

"Now you sound like the preacher."

"I don't want to preach at you. I'm just talking because when I stop, it means I gotta wrap my head around this shit. I don't know how I forgot, but I remember everything now. I don't understand how I was able to... feel like that about you."

Boyd is nodding, like he’s been thinking about this for a very long time. "I know, Raylan. It's... well, kind of a miracle, when you think of it a certain way."

"A miracle? You think God put us in the way of each other back then?"

"Yes. I believe we both needed something very badly, and we were the only people who could give that to each other."

"I guess that's as good an explanation as anything else."

The car is silent for a long time. Minutes pass, and they are both gone inside their heads. 

"Is it all gone for you now?" Boyd only sounds curious, so Raylan tells him. 

"I had a dream about us in a truck, the night I shot you. I loved you in the dream, and we were... making out. I guess there must be traces of it left. But... yeah. Other than that, it's gone."

"For me too. I'd like to have one of those dreams sometime, though. That must have felt nice."

"It did."

"Okay. So we don't have to talk about it anymore. I was just afraid... because you always acted like it never happened, that you couldn't stand to think of it."

"Apparently I couldn't."

Boyd smiled and looked out the side window. "Fair point."

"I guess I had a lot of fear and shame about it from way back, and I just made myself forget because I couldn't deal. If I'd remembered sooner, or not forgotten, I think it would have been okay a long time ago."

"Wasn't for me. Not really."

"Yeah, well. You stayed here. Ain't my fault you still got issues."

"No, it's not your fault at all. Did you think it was?"

"No. Yeah. Maybe a little." Maybe a lot, sometimes.

"We gave something to each other back then. That doesn't make us responsible for each other's choices."

"Well, I guess we're on our way to deal with the consequences of some of those choices now."

"We are indeed. I got your back, Raylan."

Raylan knows that’s true, and yet not true at the same time. "Yep. I know. For now, anyway."

"For now, and whenever I'm able to."

"We understand each other, then."

"I sincerely hope you’re right about that."

Boyd looks back out his own window, and Raylan drives on. Knowing hasn’t changed a damn thing.


End file.
